“That’s right. And that son of a bitch’ll kill a man like picking off a scab. He’s killed for less than what you just give me.”

“Did he threaten you over the Payton case?”

“Not the way I expected. If he had, I’d have thrown him in a cell. He’d been to Parchman by then, and I was still riding my high horse. He didn’t say, ‘Stay out of this or you might wind up dead.’ No, he said, ‘I hear you’re thinking about looking into the Del Payton murder, Willie. I worked that case myself in sixty-eight, worked it hard, and just about the time I thought we was getting somewhere, somebody told me to leave it alone. And I did. I left it alone. I was white and I wanted to solve that bombing, but I let it go. You ought to think about that.’ ”

“What do you think he meant? Who was he talking about?”

“Don’t know.” Pinder’s voice softens, becomes vulnerable. “But anybody who could put fear into Ray Presley scared me plenty. My kids was still living with me then, and I wasn’t about to watch them die for my pride. Or black pride, or whatever you want to call it. I couldn’t even trust the brothers in my own department. How far was I gonna get? Del Payton was gonna be just as dead either way.”

“Was it the Klan, you think?”

“The Klan? Shit. Klan wouldn’t scare Ray Presley. Those kluckers scared of him. He did shit them crackers only talked about.”

“Could it have been the FBI?” I ask, recalling Lutjens’s story of the sealed file.

A funny gleam comes into Pinder’s eyes. “Why you ask that?”

“Is it possible?”

“Anything’s possible. The feds and the local cops didn’t get on too good then. Not much better now, really. But why they’d warn Presley off . . . don’t make no sense. Hoover hated Martin Luther King. But Del didn’t have nothing to do with no big-time peoples like that.” Pinder stands suddenly and drops the file in my lap. “We finished here.”

Despite this strong hint to leave, I open the file. The first page is headed: SUPPLEMENTARY INVESTIGATION REPORT, and dated 5-15-68. Beneath this is typed: Delano Payton Murder Bombing. Then come four handwritten paragraphs that appear to detail an anonymous phone call. The signature beneath them reads, Patrolman Ray Presley.

“You can do your reading at home,” Pinder says. “I’m goin’ fishin’. Gonna spend the afternoon forgettin’ I ever saw you.”

I stand and shake his hand. “I appreciate the help, Chief. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

He chuckles. “Hey, I got an old bulletproof vest I can sell you. Wanna take a look?”